The vast majority of land vehicles move over the ground by means of wheels, and vast majority of such wheels are constituted by rims having pneumatic tires mounted therearound which are kept in shape by internal air pressure. In order to enable tires to operate correctly, they need to be inflated to an appropriate pressure, generally as specified by the manufacturer. Thus, when a vehicle's tires are in good condition and inflated to the correct pressure, the vehicle normally enjoys a considerable safety margin in road-holding characteristics. However, when tires are not inflated to the correct pressure, the danger of an accident is considerably increased. It has been observed that many users do not verify their tire pressures sufficiently carefully or sufficiently often and as a result the tire pressure of many vehicles is often too low.
Systems do indeed exist for verifying the pressure of such tires. However these systems are essentially based on having a pressure sensor placed directly on the tire being monitored together with a readout for the measured pressure which may be situated, for example, in a pilot's field of view. It will be understood that although such devices give good results, they suffer from numerous drawbacks which have considerably limited their use, and in particular they are not routinely installed on all land vehicles. In particular, such systems tend to be found only on aircraft as part of the safety procedures to be followed during takeoff and landing. The main difficulties in developing such devices lie in their high cost due, in particular, to the difficulty in providing coupling between the pressure sensor and the readout, since the pressure sensor is mounted on the tire and must be capable of rotating therewith.
The present invention therefore has the aim of providing a device for evaluating the deformation of vehicle tires in order to deduce, in particular, the pressure to which they are inflated, which device should be easy to use and should not be expensive on its own, and above all should not be expensive per tire checked.